


Paternal Instinct

by Princess of Geeks (Princess)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: AU, Angst, Curtain Fic, Drama, Episode Related, Established Relationship, Kidfic, M/M, Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-13
Updated: 2010-03-13
Packaged: 2017-10-07 23:05:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess/pseuds/Princess%20of%20Geeks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU that diverges from canon in Season 3's "Maternal Instinct." Daniel brings Shifu home instead of leaving him on Kheb, and is faced with parenthood and surveillance, both challenging in their own ways. Luckily Jack has his back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paternal Instinct

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tejas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tejas/gifts).



> Thanks to green grrl and paian, and most of all to stultiloquentia for pointing out that the first draft had no climax. LOL. Also, I have gone with canon in claiming that the name "Shifu" means "light," although as far as I can tell it does not. It means "master" in a martial arts or spiritual discipline sense. But whadaya gonna do.

_"I promised he'd be safe."_

Tears came to Daniel's eyes as the baby in his arms grabbed at his shirt and cooed at him, its wide eyes fearlessly curious. He clutched it closer and dropped to his knees.

There were no instructions for enlightenment on the pale walls of this small, doorless room. There were orange and bronze hangings, and too much light, and a ceiling that was too high and out of proportion. Looking up at it created vertigo.

"Please," Daniel begged, the tears clogging his voice, his arms tightening around the velvet bundle of baby. "I don't know what you wanted to teach me here, besides humility. I get that; I see now that I did nothing out there, that you did it all. I accept that I haven't learned a single thing today. I can't think a flame into existence, or make weapons float in midair. But you can. You can. So, please. If you can protect him here, surely you could protect him just as well on Earth, on my planet. We know you there; we know Mother Nature. You've been there in the past. You must have been."

Daniel looked down into the puzzled, innocent-seeming face of Sha're's son, and tears escaped from the corners of his eyes and ran down his cheeks. The swirling being of light was hovering, watching him. Watching the baby. "He's all I have left of her. She wanted me to find him. I promised her. I promised." Daniel's voice broke again. He bent his head over the child, who was still cooing, still hanging on to his shirt.

"Help me. Help me do this for her."

^^^^

General Hammond was waiting at the foot of the ramp to take Major Coburn's salute as the four teams came through the gate safely from Kheb. It was getting on to what he usually thought of as his bedtime, but he wasn't about to leave the mountain until this particular mission was entirely over. Between the potential for finding the harcesis child, unlikely though that seemed, and the deterioration of the defensive situation on-planet, as described by O'Neill, it was a mission that would have had him pulling his hair out if he'd had any left to pull.

The reason for Coburn's sidelong smile was apparent as soon as SG-1 and Bra'tac came through the gate on SG-2's heels. In Doctor Jackson's arms was a crying, struggling baby, swaddled in bronze-colored velvet.

"We found him, General," O'Neill said briskly, handing off his weapon to the armorer, Carter following suit a step behind him. "Permission to skip the briefing and make a run to the all-night drugstore."

"For what, Colonel?" Hammond said mildly. Hardly anything O'Neill popped up with surprised him anymore.

"Diapers and formula, sir," O'Neill said, deadpan. Hammond glanced at Doctor Jackson, who had shifted the baby to his shoulder, trying for a position that would soothe him, but the infant wasn't having any of it. Its wailing intensified. Jackson handed his Beretta, one-handed, to Carter.

Hammond shook his head. "I'll get someone else to go, Colonel. Take your team to the infirmary."

"Sir," the colonel acknowledged, strict and stern, his underlying mood impossible to read, and turned for the door, with Doctor Jackson and Major Carter right behind him. The baby screamed the whole way.

Hammond watched them out, thinking that it had been a while since there had been children in the gateroom. The refugees from Edora had been the last that he could immediately recall. Shaking his head, he looked up at Harriman.

"Sergeant, send someone out--"

"Already on it, sir," Harriman said smoothly. Hammond smiled, and turned to find Teal'c lingering at the ramp's foot with Bra'tac, who nodded, part greeting and part his salute for an equal.

"I will take my leave immediately. I will seek out any Jaffa who have fled from Chulak, and then I will return there, in hopes of gathering information about the plans of Apophis. Much is uncertain now. If you would please allow me through your gate to the planet you know as PX7-225."

Hammond glanced up at the control room and lifted his chin, all the order Harriman needed to start the dialing sequence. As the chevrons began to glow and the gate groaned to life, Hammond asked Bra'tac, "Do you believe the child with Doctor Jackson is the harcesis of your legends?"

Bra'tac paused before answering. "It is possible. It was in the care of a being the likes of which I have never seen before." Bra'tac exchanged a glance with Teal'c that Hammond could only described as awed. "It seems there is truth in the old myths after all, Teal'c. And, much hope."

And with a clasp of Teal'c's arm, the Jaffa master was gone, through the wormhole in search of his shattered forces.

"I'm going to enjoy this debriefing, aren't I, Teal'c?" Hammond said.

Teal'c only smiled, and headed for the armory.

Daniel Jackson was waiting in the conference room, feeding the baby a careful trickle of liquid from something that looked like a turkey baster, when Hammond arrived and took his usual seat. He was joined in just a few seconds by the rest of SG-1. The baby was still in the velvet clothing. It seemed contented enough, now that it was getting some nourishment.

And it was indeed an interesting briefing, if not exactly enjoyable. Crispy-fried Jaffa, a dead priestess, glowing beings who could float through walls and send humans through them too, and a deadly, perfectly timed lightning-strike.

"And this Mother Nature, this Oma, agreed to let you take the boy along when you left," Hammond summed up, marveling yet again at the stories this team invariably brought back through the gate.

An airman appeared at the door. "Sir, we have supplies and clothes for the infant in the infirmary now. Including a baby bottle."

Doctor Jackson, with only a little hesitation, stood up and handed over his bundle.

"What were you feeding him just then?" O'Neill asked.

"Plain milk, from the commissary," Jackson answered absently, watching the airman carry the now sleepy boy away, while cooing down at him. Hammond remembered, the information floating up through the morass of new intel, that the airman's name was Forbes, and that he was himself the father of two.

"That'll do in a pinch," O'Neill said, thoughtfully.

Hammond said, "Doctor Jackson, is this child the harcesis?"

Jackson turned, scratched the back of his head, and sat. "Well, Sha're, before her death, believed him to be. And for whatever reason, Amanuet chose to send him to Kheb instead of see Apophis carry out whatever plans he had for the child." Jackson stopped, thinking.

Hammond suppressed a shudder. "But is there any actual evidence about this infant we have here?"

"My personal experience isn't exactly vast, but as you saw, he seems to be acting like, well, a baby. Doctor Fraiser will run more tests, I'm sure, but the initial scans show nothing out of the ordinary. He's pre-verbal, he's exhibiting no strange behaviors, he seems to be acting like a baby around six months old."

Hammond looked at O'Neill, who shrugged.

Carter, looking hesitant, said, "Daniel, I don't mean any offense, but after everything I saw today, I just have to--" She stopped and sighed and marshaled her words carefully. "I don't see how this can be Sha're's son. This baby looks less than a year old. The dates are all wrong."

Jackson looked toward the door through with the airman had disappeared. "I know," he said heavily. "I thought of that."

"What's your explanation, then?" Hammond asked, gently.

"It must have something to do with Oma Desala and her abilities. What we saw her do...." Jackson shook his head.

Teal'c explained, "We saw the monk who spoke with Daniel Jackson shot in the chest by Apophis' Jaffa. With a staff weapon. It would have been a killing shot. But his body seemed to become a white light, which rose and formed into a stream in midair. His clothes were left behind, lying empty on the porch. But the light floated away."

"I saw it, too, sir," the colonel said. "The monk and this Oma person both looked like--" he broke off and waved his hands -- "kind of like huge glowing flying squid, sir."

Hammond hid a smile.

"Oma had a human face, though," Carter put in. "The colonel makes it sound-- Well, it was really quite impressive, sir. And then there was the sudden change in the weather, and the lightning. That was not a natural storm."

Hammond shook his head.

Jackson said, "Oma Desala told me the child's name, and then she left the room, left me there with the baby. She rose through the ceiling like a, a cloud of light. Tendrils of white light. When I came outside, I could see the storm gathering. Then the lightning came. But we all laid down our weapons, to show we weren't the threat." Hammond noted Jack stirring in his chair. Jackson went on, earnestly, "Sir, these beings have abilities, powers, that we don't understand. I think it's obvious that Oma Desala made the storm, and that she is the one who killed the Jaffa attacking us. She was clearly protecting the baby; she had to be the one who killed the Jaffa Apophis sent earlier, as well. Sha're knew that Amanuet thought the baby would be safe on Kheb. I don't know if Amanuet knew about Oma Desala, or if she was simply relying on her own priestess to take care of the child on a planet that she knew all other Goa'uld would avoid. And there might be other people there too, although we didn't see them. Isn't it unlikely that there was only one monk and one priestess on the entire planet? But in any case, Oma Desala defended, first, the baby, and then us, from Apophis' Jaffa. It's obvious that she could have stopped me from bringing the baby back to Earth. But she didn't."

"Do you have an explanation for the discrepancy in his age?"

Jackson looked troubled. "I don't. I can only speculate that Oma Desala and the monk have control over the physical forms they assume. Perhaps they can change others' forms as well."

"So how do we know that this child you brought back is the same one Amanuet sent there?"

"I guess we can't be absolutely certain," Jackson said, reluctantly, but Hammond could see that despite his willingness to trace the evidence, and listen to Carter's objections, he was, in fact, certain.

"Well," O'Neill said, "you're right that the age is all wrong, but if it's not Sha're's boy, I have no earthly idea who it might be."

Carter said, "Doctor Fraiser is running genetic tests, to compare to the samples we have on file for Ska'ara. That will tell us a lot."

"Good," Hammond said. "Did the rest of the Jaffa at the mothership know of your presence?"

O'Neill answered, with confirming nods from Teal'c. "No, sir. It looked like two companies, at least, were sent to the temple, and as far as we could tell as we returned to the gate, the lightning strike killed them all. There might have been stragglers who escaped, but frankly, I doubt it. And only the dozen or so at the head of the column actually saw us."

"So you're confident the Goa'uld don't know the baby is here on Earth?"

Teal'c said, "I believe that every warrior who saw us was incinerated."

"And you also believe Oma Desala sent the lightning."

"Yes," Jackson put in, before Teal'c could answer. "Lightning, light," he added, absently.

Hammond said, "Beg pardon?"

"Oma Desala told me the baby's name is Shifu. It means 'light.' "

^^^^

When Jack let himself in with his key card to the VIP quarters, Daniel was lying on the floor on a blanket, talking to the baby and watching him investigate a small menagerie of Beanie Babies that someone had provided. Jack glanced around, taking in the brand-new crib next to the bed, the changing pad, on the table near the ripped-open package of diapers that the airman had brought back during the briefing, and, in the corner by the door, a small refrigerator. He went over and opened it. There was a bottle of formula in there; nothing else.

"Aw, darn. No beer," he said, and strolled over to Daniel. He sat down on the sofa behind Daniel and the baby and started unlacing his boots.

Daniel glanced at him, and at his boots, and frowned in puzzlement, perhaps wondering why Jack was taking them off. Silly archaeologist; of course Jack was going to stay a while.

Daniel said, "Janet says initial genetic tests indicate Shifu is related to Ska'ara."

"Well then," Jack said. He paused. It was a bit momentous to have the scientific confirmation. He looked at the baby, rolling on its back, chewing on the tail of a Beanie Baby kitten. Sha're's son. "Uh, you're both stuck here for the night, I gather?" He glanced at the security camera with its glowing red light. Usually they seemed reassuring. Right now it felt intrusive.

"Yeah. She wants to monitor him for another day or so. Just in case."

"Ah," Jack said.

After a pause, Daniel continued his running commentary to the baby about the various kinds of cats represented in the Beanie Baby collection. Calico, panther, lion, tiger....

Jack eased down to the floor with them, sighing in relief to be off his feet, and leaned on an elbow. The baby regarded him with suspicion, but his frown relaxed when Daniel put his hand on the baby's stomach and jiggled a little.

"It's okay, Shifu. This is Jack. You'll be seeing a lot of him. I hope."

Jack smiled at Daniel, then turned his smile at the baby. "Hey big guy," he said in his softest, calmest voice. "I see you got your cat family going here. You got something against dogs? Six cats, and, oh, what's this? A red bull. Hmm. That doesn't fit in. 'Three of these things belong together....' "

The baby seemed fascinated by the way the stuffed cats danced around under Jack's hands. Someone, probably an infirmary nurse, had dressed the boy in a snap-fronted, one-piece set of footie pajamas and gotten rid of his hat. Jack thought the fuzzy pastel material was a big improvement over velvet.

Stretching for the toy, the baby turned himself over, and began to creep toward the cat, until he could capture it from Jack's hands.

Daniel said, "Janet has no explanation for why he seems so young, given that we know his birthdate."

"Maybe he spent some time as a floating squid, too. Maybe that doesn't count against his regular growth."

Daniel shook his head, in negation or puzzlement.

Jack left it at that. It was a mystery. One of many. He played with the baby, getting to know him, searching for the slightest sign of anything non-human in his demeanor and not finding it, trying to ignore the tug on his heart at the touch of the warm little hands. Sha're's baby, he had to admit, was adorable -- fat and curious and active, with that sweet baby smell, making pleased little sounds as he played with the toys.

_Not again,_ Jack thought. _Not yet._ He'd fallen for Cassie, true. But she was older, and just a little more distant from him than this child. He tried to put aside that train of thought.

"I wonder if his eyes will turn brown in a couple of months," Jack murmured absently. The baby cheerfully fell into playing tug-of-war with him with the stuffed tiger.

"Isn't that what usually happens? Babies are born with blue eyes and some of them change? ... What the hell have I done, Jack?" Daniel asked.

"Could you be more specific," Jack said, moving the stuffed lion in too, making its mane tickle Shifu under the chin. It took three tries before the baby's wary half-smile turned into a chuckle. Then he grabbed the toy and held it away from Jack.

Daniel rolled onto his back and let his head drop onto the rug.

"I have a baby to take care of. I have Sha're's baby." Jack sat there, just breathing, letting the idea expand into the room with them. After a minute Daniel said, "What am I.... I don't know the first thing about this. I have no idea what I'm doing."

"Welcome to parenthood, Daniel, where everyone is always unprepared," Jack said with a smile. "It's a rule."

Daniel put his hand over his eyes.

Jack never did get around to going home that night. After a short while of playing tug-of-war and tickle, with an interlude of peekaboo, Jack, drawing on extensive past experience, could tell that the dinner of formula that Shifu had had in the infirmary had made its presence known, and so he gave Daniel what Daniel claimed was his second-ever lesson in diaper changing. Then Jack went back to the infirmary in search of a wad of plastic sacks, in lieu of a dedicated diaper trash-can.

Daniel gave Shifu another bottle when the clean diaper didn't end his fussiness, and then handed him off to Jack for some burping, when Jack insisted he needed it. Jack, with a smile, realized that Daniel was serious about needing baby-tending lessons. All kinds of basic lessons. He'd failed to grasp the significance of the all-important burping step after a meal.

After making the baby's stomach comfortable, Jack marched him around the room on a blanket on his shoulder. It felt wonderful, and it felt horrible, all at the same time. He winced at the avalanche of memories of Charlie as an infant. He took a deep breath and made himself keep walking, slowly, without jarring, trying and failing to focus on that and not on the images that crowded his mind. It had been years since he'd taken the warm weight of a cranky infant on his shoulder like this. Years.

He'd been home for the first couple of months of Charlie's life, and he'd soaked up all the time he could with him then, knowing how precious the time was, knowing how fast the kid would change and how long his own deployments were likely to be. Charlie'd been a very fussy baby in those days, and had mixed up his days and nights, and Sara had needed all the help she could get. She had breast-fed, though, so there wasn't much for Jack to do outside of changing diapers and walking the floor.

On his shoulder, Shifu was still fussing and kicking a little. He scrubbed his face into Jack's neck and yawned. Jack, still carefully pacing the room's perimeter, ordered himself to think about this baby, here and now, and stop remembering Charlie. He examined the aviation posters on the wall, and noticed how his own stomach was growling for a before-bed snack. He patted Shifu's back, rhythmically, automatically.

Daniel had stretched out on the bed to read, but he couldn't stop watching Jack walk up and down. After a while, perhaps hypnotized by Jack's pacing, Daniel fell asleep with a file folder open on his chest.

Unlike his adopted Dad, however, Shifu just wouldn't settle. He'd fall asleep on Jack's shoulder, and Jack would carefully, carefully lower him into the new crib that stood ready beside the double bed, supporting his head all the way -- another flood of memories there, way too vivid, which made Jack scrunch up his eyes -- but when Shifu was horizontal and Jack was carefully pulling away and standing up, the kid would thrash his head from side to side, wave his arms, and start crying again.

So familiar.

So Jack walked the floor, measuring the big room with his strides.

When he'd gotten Shifu to fall asleep on his shoulder again, Jack tried the trick of wrapping the baby in one blanket and warming up another one against his body before spreading it in the crib, so that when he put Shifu down, he'd have a double layer of warm fabric against his head, instead of the minor shock of cold sheets.

That didn't work either. None of his tricks for getting the kid to stay in the crib worked.

Eventually he found that if he walked Shifu to sleep on his shoulder, he could carefully, carefully lower himself into a corner of the sofa and slouch so as to rest his head on the cushions, without the baby waking.

_Great,_ Jack thought, when they were finally settled, his own head thrown back, his eyelids scratchy, his feet even more tired than they'd been when they came down the ramp from Kheb. _Just where I want to spend the next three months. Sleeping on the sofa. Sitting up._

He didn't look too closely at the assumptions that implied about the change this baby would make in his life. Cradled against Jack's shoulder, Shifu stayed asleep. Eventually Jack drifted off too. Only to wake again when Shifu started crying in earnest about oh-four-hundred.

Jack got up off the couch, creaking a bit, and handed off his noisy armful to a chagrined, puzzled-looking, just-awakened Daniel, who was still half-lying on the bed with the file crumpled over his chest. Jack found the can of powdered formula and the bottled water and heated up some breakfast-in-bed for the baby.

"God, sorry, I fell asleep on you ... both. Did you stay? What time is it?" Daniel said, blinking in the lamplight, when Shifu's demanding cries had subsided to greedy sucking noises. "You didn't have to do that."

Jack sat down beside him on the bed, and leaned over and stuffed another pillow behind Daniel's shoulders. Then he automatically adjusted the crook of Daniel's elbow to get the baby's head higher.

Instead of answering any of that, Jack observed, "You gotta keep his head up when you feed him. Or the formula pools in his ears. Can give him an ear infection."

"Right," Daniel said, "thanks," and he sat there, trying to wake up, watching the baby eat.

Jack scrubbed his face with both hands and lay back on the bed, leaving his feet hanging off. Yeah, he remembered this. Six months to a year of constant sleep deprivation. Sara had called it her Zombie Era.

"Did you sleep on the sofa?" Daniel asked.

"Yeah. I sat with him on my shoulder. I couldn't get him to go down in the crib." Jack took a deep breath. He kept thinking this stuff, and there was no reason in the world not to say it all out loud to Daniel. He sat up abruptly and looked Daniel in the eye. "Charlie was the same way for a long time after he was born. Wouldn't settle down unless he was being held. We finally got him to sleep in his own bed when he was about three months old, but it was a bitch."

Daniel was frowning at him, and he started to say something, but glanced at the security camera and shook his head in frustration. He returned his attention to Shifu. "He polished off that entire bottle in no time," Daniel said, instead of whatever was really in his mind, and handed over the empty. Then he took the blanket from Jack's shoulder and tossed it over his own and tilted the baby onto it. He began patting Shifu's back. Firmly.

"You're a quick study," Jack said, and he couldn't help the smile that wanted to curl one side of his mouth. Daniel looked so damn kissable as he rocked the baby and patted him and tried for a burp. So earnest and rumpled and intent on Doing The Right Thing. Why were they here, dammit? Stuck in the mountain? Why weren't they at Jack's house, just waking up together, like they'd done only last weekend? A roil of emotions washed over Jack -- worry and gratitude and love, and a reluctant kind of awe over the fact of the baby, a feeling that seemed so familiar and so strange. Something he'd never thought he'd experience again, for sure. Yeah, they'd been looking for the kid for months, but he hadn't been real to Jack until now. He hadn't been there when he was born, not like Daniel had been. Jack hadn't had to make plans for this. If he were honest, he hadn't really believed they'd ever find him. Not that he'd told Daniel that.

Daniel said nothing, but his smile as he watched Jack's face was so affectionate and so intimate that it made Jack's heart turn over. Jack was sure that whatever was there in his expression to read, Daniel had read it.

"Did you change his diaper already?" Daniel said.

"Nah; generally you wait until after they eat to do that. More efficient." Daniel coaxed out a burp, but Shifu was still restless. "I wonder if he's hungry," Jack said. "You know, for food. If he's six months old or so, he's old enough to be eating stuff -- rice cereal, baby food, mashed bananas. Stuff like that."

"That's why he's still so fussy?"

"Maybe."

Daniel was silent for a bit, gently bouncing the squirming baby. He was thinking. His glasses had made a deep mark in his temple as he slept, Jack noticed. Daniel kept automatically patting the baby, jiggling him a little, but his focus was somewhere far away, inside or, perhaps, in the past.

_Sha're would have loved this,_ Jack thought, and the regret and the secondhand loss were a stab of pain in his chest. He took a deep breath and wiped his palms on his pants. He should get up, see about baby food, and about breakfast for himself and Daniel.

When he met Daniel's eyes again, Daniel was frowning at him, all outward concern now. He seemed to weigh his words. "How hard is this going to be for you?" Daniel said. "We never talked about what would happen if we actually found him, only the necessity of my search. I'm imposing already, dredging things up, making you think about--"

"Later," Jack interrupted, getting up, turning his back, stretching. "We'll talk about it later. I'll go see about getting him some gruel."

"Oh, very good," Daniel said, as Jack relaced his boots. "Leave me all alone with diaper duty. That's just great."

Jack laughed, and opened the suite's door. The first commissary shift should be cooking breakfast right about now. He'd bring back coffee, too.

^^^^

When Jack came back to Daniel's suite, after eating breakfast alone in the commissary, he was laden with supplies. Shifu was only too happy to eat Cream Of Wheat and drink down another half a bottle, confirming Jack's theory. Daniel had bagels and cream cheese. The two grownups drank some coffee, which did little to clear the fog in Daniel's brain, and wandered the halls with the baby, pointing out the scenery between Level 25 and the infirmary, until the first shift there, Janet included, arrived.

Jack excused himself, saying something about errands to run, and surprised Daniel, again, by kissing Shifu on the top of his head, there in the hallway in front of the infirmary, when they parted company.

It was another day of medical tests, and toward the end of Daniel and Shifu's lunch break, Janet knocked on the door of their VIP suite and slapped a thick folder on the table.

"Everything seems perfectly normal," she said. "Every scan I can do, every test I can run, shows no abnormal brain activity, nothing out of place in his anatomy, nothing. Furthermore, though I'm waiting for a full result to come back from Atlanta, I hope by the end of the week, the preliminary genetic screenings do show a very high probability that he's Sha're's son."

Daniel was on his knees on the rug, experimenting with letting Shifu pull himself in several directions by hanging onto his fingers. He nodded. It was what he'd expected, but he didn't know what to feel -- happy or worried or relieved, or what, exactly.

"I'm prepared to release you in the morning, as long as Shifu keeps behaving like this -- like a regular baby."

"That's wonderful news, Janet. Thank you."

"Well, we do have a precedent in Cassie. And from everything you've told me, there's nothing immediately dangerous, to us, at least, about him somehow having the Goa'uld's knowledge -- at this stage of his development. But I want you to bring him back in regularly, in case there's some kind of hidden problem, like Cassie had. I'm sure the general will concur. But until he can speak, and tell us about it, or until he demonstrates something abnormal in his behavior, I think ethically, we need to allow him as normal a developmental process as possible." She looked at the child for a moment, her glance fond. But then she visibly steeled herself and returned her gaze to Daniel. "Unfortunately there's one more hurdle we still have to get through." As she rolled her eyes and prepared to deliver that news, the phone rang. Daniel, already braced for disaster, froze. Janet stepped over to answer it.

"Yes? ... Already? .... That's fine, sir. I was just about to tell him myself." She hung up, looking at the phone, looking worried. "Of course General Hammond had to inform Washington immediately when you brought Shifu here. They've sent some people to check him out. We're wanted in the conference room." She turned to him. "I'm sorry, Daniel. I thought you'd have one more day before you had to face them."

"Who is it?" Daniel said.

"Major Davis," Janet said, and Daniel brightened, "and Major Simmons."

"Oh shit," Daniel said. "Here we go."

Janet looked regretful, and she gathered up her papers as he gathered up the baby, and she held the door for them.

^^^^

Hammond hated these sorts of briefings; the ones where he had to sit on his hands and keep quiet while Washington's lap dogs pretended they could give orders in his facility.

Davis was all right; Hammond had been reassured a while ago that he was on their side when it counted. But words could not express his contempt for Simmons. Someday, somewhere, the smug bastard would get his comeuppance, and Hammond would shed no tears for him when he did.

In the meantime Hammond kept his eyes on the wall over Davis' shoulder and his mind as carefully blank as he could.

Jackson and Fraiser were scrupulously polite, answering questions professionally and clearly, in that way that Hammond had learned meant they both had their rage tightly leashed. They answered Simmons' questions literally, volunteering nothing. And Hammond said nothing, even when Simmons' unctuous glances tried to include him. Unless he was spoken to directly, there was nothing Hammond chose to do to make this easier for Simmons' puppetmasters, or to rein in his own people and make them cooperate. Davis mostly stayed quiet and took notes. But Hammond knew he'd been sent for some specific reason. He hoped it was to keep any eye on Simmons, as Washington's baroque political dance spilled into the SGC command once again, but he knew there were many other reasons why the Pentagon would have sent their official liaison along.

Simmons' grilling of Fraiser for medical speculation, and of Jackson for theories about the development of a harcesis, had gotten him nowhere. All Simmons had was the barest set of facts, and photocopies of Fraiser's test documentation, which he probably couldn't read any more than Hammond could. He could twist the facts on his own, thank you very much.

"You know I have two grandchildren, Doctor Jackson," Simmons was saying, trying to look sympathetic.

"Is that so," Jackson said. He'd pushed his chair a little back from the table and was bouncing Shifu on his knee, letting the baby play with his pen. Shifu was chewing on it and grimacing.

Simmons got up. Fraiser stiffened.

"So I think you can let go of your suspicions just this once, eh?" Simmons came around the table and bent over the baby. Jackson watched him, back straight, unmoving, eyes narrowed. "Can't I have a turn holding him?" He patted the baby on the shoulder. Shifu cried out and squirmed and turned, shrinking away, hiding his face in Daniel's uniform. Daniel tightened his arms around the baby.

"He's a little shy with people he doesn't know," Jackson said stonily, his gaze locked to Simmons'.

It was either grab the now-crying baby and pull him away, or give up. Simmons scowled, but sat back down. Hammond glanced at Davis. He was studiously writing on a legal pad, pretending he wasn't involved.

There was a rap at the doorjamb, and O'Neill stuck his head into the room.

"Sorry I'm late to the party, general," he said, and sauntered in.

"You weren't invited to it," Hammond said, dryly. He was torn. O'Neill's baiting of Simmons was always entertaining; nearly as much fun as listening to Jackson do it, but O'Neill wasn't on the duty roster today and thus truly had no reason to be here, other than his understandable concern for a teammate and an interest in the baby. Simmons had certainly not asked for his presence. O'Neill wasn't in uniform, and he had a plastic sack dangling from one hand.

"You had the day off," Jackson said to him, sounding puzzled.

"I went home, took a shower, picked up some stuff," O'Neill said casually, pulling out a chair, as if Simmons and Davis weren't even there. At the sound of his voice Shifu turned and made a pleased noise and held out his arms.

O'Neill's face softened as the baby eagerly and clumsily climbed at him, certain he would be caught and supported. The baby ended up cuddled against O'Neill's shoulder. Hammond knew he shouldn't be surprised at how comfortable Jack was with holding a baby. He didn't think about the colonel's past very often, but he was aware of the whole story about the family he'd lost. He smiled in spite of himself. He thought briefly, fondly, of Tessa and Kayla, and of Cassie Fraiser, then pushed the thoughts away.

Simmons said, oily and hateful, "I wouldn't have expected you of all people to be any kind of soft touch with children, Colonel." Hammond narrowed his eyes. The man wouldn't dare. Would he?

O'Neill merely shrugged. It turned out the sack he'd brought contained stuffed toys and several colorful rattles, which he proceeded to show the baby one by one. Jackson grabbed the empty sack and stuffed it safely away in his pocket.

"If that's all, sir?" Fraiser was asking, pulling her files together and leaning forward.

"You're dismissed, Doctor." She stood up and strode away, with never a glance at the men from Washington.

Simmons snapped, "We can recall her if we have any further questions. Which I'm sure we will."

"Of course. But as you may or may not know or care, we have three in-patients right now, and she has work to do. And as we've clearly answered all the questions--"

"Not so fast, General. We haven't covered the critically important question of where the baby will be kept."

"With me, of course," Jackson said. "We've already started the paperwork. Under Colorado law, he's my son."

Hammond smiled. He'd looked into that himself, as soon as Shifu was inside the SGC, and of course Jackson would have known all about that legal nicety already. In detail.

Simmons said, "General, you can't possibly be intending to allow this child out of the safety of the mountain, or allow him to have contact with the general population."

"I'm doing exactly that, Major. As you already heard, there's no medical or military reason to keep him here. He'll be released into his father's custody."

Simmons exchanged a glance with Davis, who remained quiet, but his expression was subtly pained.

Simmons said, obviously gloating, "Well. I have different orders, General."

Davis put in, "General, I'm sorry, but the Pentagon had anticipated that that would be your decision. They're insisting that, if the baby is to live in town with Doctor Jackson, given the potential security risk, and the child's status as a possible, uh, military asset, there be a high level of surveillance." He slid a file from underneath his legal pad and pushed it reluctantly toward Hammond.

"Surveillance?" Jackson demanded. "What kind of surveillance? And what do you mean: Military Asset?"

Davis said, "Cameras. Like you have in the mountain. Possibly a security detail. It's all in there."

"That's absurd," Jackson said, and Hammond wished he could say the same, louder.

Davis said, as Simmons sat back and looked smug, content to let the other man deliver the bad news, for once, "I'm afraid it's not negotiable."

Much as he would have enjoyed hearing the diatribe that Jackson was clearly ready to deliver, this had gone on long enough. Hammond had no intention of simply accepting written orders on personnel policy, delivered by a pair of majors, one a paper pusher and one not even attached to a regular AF unit. He didn't open Davis' file; he barely glanced at it.

He put his hands on the table. "Gentlemen, this meeting is recessed. I have some phone calls to make." The military men stood up hastily. Jackson, taking advantage of his freedom from protocol, scooped up Shifu from Jack and left the room. In a hurry.

^^^^

Back in their VIP suite, Daniel lay on the rug with the baby. With _his son, Sha're's son._ His son, by law and by adoption -- so strange to say it. He watched Shifu explore, mostly by chewing on it, one of the bright twisty rattles that Jack had brought to the briefing.

He could feel Jack behind him, sitting on the sofa, but Daniel couldn't say anything that he wanted to say. Goddamned cameras. He wanted out of here. Now.

Jack sighed, and got up and went to the fridge, and Daniel heard the clink of aluminum. When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw Jack sipping a Coke. Daniel wouldn't have put it past him to smuggle a six-pack in here, under the circumstances.

He rolled to his back on the floor and rubbed his eyes. God, he wanted out.

"I picked up a car seat," Jack said, waving his hand toward the corner, as if they were having the conversation he'd started in the conference room. "And a few more clothes. I guess we can break this crib down and take it along."

Daniel thought, _Along where? What am I doing? Where do we go from here?_

Daniel scrunched up his face and put a fist to his forehead. He'd been so focused for so long on the missions and the war and, in the background of that, for months now, the necessity of finding Kheb, of finding the baby. And he was used to being torn, used to compartmentalizing his equally urgent priorities, all of them always pushing for number one, forcing him to rob Peter to pay Paul in every area of his life, every day. So used to that kind of dismembered, too-multi-focused existence, that when everything collapsed into the here and now it was like ... like being under fire. All your awareness in one, critically important place. It gave him an adrenaline shot, and yet he had nothing to accomplish just now with this burst of artificial energy. Fight or flight, Jack called it. He didn't think he had learned to use it very well for either.

The last time he'd felt this speared by reality was the day Sha're died. All his goals and dreams and plans had collapsed in on themselves, at the same time that his carefully controlled feelings had exploded in the blast of a staff weapon.

It had taken him a long time to work through all that. That day had left him with the psychic equivalent of ringing ears and shell-shock. The explosion that was her death and the negation of his previous, consuming focus on finding her had left a numb, echoing aftermath. Left emptiness.

What he was feeling today wasn't nearly as bad as that, though it was probably going to prove to be nearly as enormous a change, though in a different way. A happier way. He hoped.

There was so much they didn't know, despite Janet's test results.... He rolled to his side and put his hand out, cupping it around the soft cap of the baby's brown hair. The child ignored the now-familiar touch in favor of continuing to explore the rattle.

_Shifu....._ Oma Desala, whoever or whatever she really was, had named him. And then had granted them all safe passage back to Earth -- had bent to Daniel's heartfelt cry of desire.

_My son. Sha're's son.... Who are you? Who will you become? Have I done the right thing in bringing you home?_

The baby, oblivious, chewed and drooled and made little contented noises. Daniel sighed.

"Listen," Jack said. "Come home with me in the morning. Or hell, maybe after that train wreck of a briefing, Janet will spring you two now, just to spite Simmons. Come home to my place while they do the surveillance remodel of your condo. Then you won't have to look at it happening. Or breathe the plaster dust."

Daniel rolled over and met his eyes. He was so grateful for Jack's calm, for Jack's skills, last night and today. God, so grateful. He hoped Jack knew that.

Hammond had been furious, and hiding it well, when he'd informed Daniel that the cost of their freedom was the cameras Davis had threatened. Daniel knew he had no choice but to go along. For now. _One step at a time,_ Hammond's eyes had begged him. _Work with me. It could be worse._ So Daniel had bitten his lip and calmly agreed.

Fucking paranoid Washington bureaucrats. The interference with his life would never be over.

And in the short run, Jack was offering him, once again, a refuge. Jack....

At least he'd managed to keep one secret from the Pentagon. So far. He shivered and sat up. Jack looked tired, there on the sofa.

Daniel said, "That would be wonderful. I can't wait to get out of here. But. Do you think the general will allow it? An end run around the new rules like that?"

"Well, we'll probably only get away with it for a day or two. We can blame it on the bureaucracy, left hand/right hand, yadda." Jack smiled, that secret, between-them smile that always made Daniel want to kiss him.

"Thank you. I seem to be saying that a lot." Daniel looked at the baby. "Let's get the hell out of here, kiddo."

Shifu bonked himself in the cheek with the rattle, and looked very puzzled. Then he did it again. Daniel laughed in spite of himself.

_Oh, God.... What have I gotten myself into?_

Jack played with Shifu on the floor of the suite, while Daniel changed into civvies. They checked with Walter, who told them that both Simmons and Davis had gone to Daniel's condo to supervise Siler and the crew that had been scrambled to install the video surveillance.

Walter was scrupulously polite, as always, but he had the twinkle in his eye that meant he was on their side and saying less than he knew. He silently showed them the top document of Hammond's copy of Doctor Fraiser's file on Shifu. It was a note saying the baby was medically cleared for release, immediately.

That was good enough for Daniel.

Jack helped him belt the new and pristine car seat in the back of his Honda, and strap Shifu in it, over the baby's protests, and then Daniel, feeling a little surreal, was driving down the twisty road with the baby, with Jack on his tail. Shifu quieted during the drive. Maybe he was looking at the scenery. Daniel kept craning to see him in the rearview mirror.

Jack's house was always the definition of "quiet, airy and welcoming", but after the stress and intensity of the mountain, this time, it seemed especially so. Usually the welcome change to life above ground registered with Daniel as relief and relaxation, but today Daniel felt surprise. He was seeing the place as if for the first time, because of Shifu. He walked the baby through the comfortable rooms, thinking out loud to him, describing the place, feeling he could breathe for the first time in days.

Jack was cursing amiably as he muscled the disassembled crib into the spare room and began setting it up. It was just background noise; nothing Daniel had to react to, and vaguely comforting. With Shifu perched on his hip, Daniel opened the fridge and then all the cabinets, one after another, checking the inventory, and yes, Jack had shopped for food for the two of them, as well as things he judged Shifu would eat. On the kitchen table were two enormous packages of diapers.

Daniel stood there in Jack's kitchen, holding the curious and squirming baby, overwhelmed, feeling like he'd fallen through the rabbit hole into someone else's life.

Jack came in, glanced Daniel's way, and put away the tools he'd used to assemble the crib. He stood up and turned and sighed, hands on hips, looking around the kitchen as if he, too, was seeing it with new eyes. Then he crossed to Daniel and put his arms around him, baby and all. Daniel, with a bright wash of relief, like sudden sunlight, got one arm around Jack's waist and let his head rest against Jack's.

"Thank you," Daniel said. "For everything. For just... coping. For taking care of it all."

Jack's answer was a kiss pressed to Daniel's neck.

The doorbell rang, and Jack pulled away, smirking knowingly. It was Sam, with Cassandra in tow, and an armload of toys and sheets and baby stuff -- enough for, to Daniel's untrained eye, a baby shower.

"Janet says she'll bring dinner and Teal'c about 1800," Sam said, grinning, and Daniel grinned back and shook his head in wonder.

Jack had taken charge of Shifu as Daniel looked at all the baby-related bounty, and he, also grinning, said to the baby: "Uncle Jack's house is like your secret hideout, see? And we have lots and lots of accomplices here."

"Like a pirate cave!" Cassie supplied, and soon she and Jack were on the floor with the baby and Sam was putting new sheets on the baby's mattress and tying in the new bumper pads and hanging the seahorse mobile, and before long they were joined by Janet and Teal'c, and then it was dinnertime. It was a welcome-home party. Daniel moved through it all like a man in a dream, and every so often, he couldn't help thinking, _Oh, Sha're. You should be here. You would love this._

After it got dark, they moved out to the deck, and Cassie was giving a very sleepy and contented Shifu a bottle, when Sam asked what they were all wondering.

"What are your plans, Daniel?"

He turned to her from where he was perched on the railing, watching Cassie. "God, I've been thinking of nothing else. Trying to figure it out. All I know right now is that it makes sense for me to take some leave, and try to settle into the idea of being a --father." He still almost stuttered when he said it. "And learn to take care of Shifu," he finished.

Sam nodded thoughtfully. Daniel caught Jack's eye. Jack was listening intently, but Daniel knew he wouldn't be the one to ask questions or offer any plans, not while the others were here. Daniel was sure that everyone present, except perhaps Cassie, harbored suspicions about the evolution of the relationship between him and Jack. So far, he had put off telling the team, or even Janet. They were both continually torn between trust in the family ties that were on full display tonight, and concern for the rules that were being broken. It was a burden, to bring the others into something so forbidden, to, in essence, make them lie. It was a lot to ask, and it was something Jack, especially, had been reluctant to do.

"You get up to twelve weeks of family leave," Janet said, quietly, petting Cassie's hair.

"And whatever amount of regular leave you've piled up, being a workaholic and all," Jack noted.

"Wow," Sam said. "It's such a big change for you."

"Sam Carter, mistress of understatement," Jack said, and they all laughed.

"Look, mom," Cassie whispered. "He's asleep. What do I do now?"

"Just let him stay in your lap, honey," Janet said. "And you don't have to whisper. He fell asleep in the middle of us talking; he'll sleep through it just fine unless something changes and disturbs him."

"He's pretty fussy at night; at least that's what Jack says. Fussier than normal," Daniel mused.

They all looked at Jack, and Daniel could see the questions rise and die away unspoken in their faces.

"O'Neill is indeed the most experienced parent of us all," Teal'c said, and Daniel had to smile at his fearlessness.

"For which I am very thankful," Daniel breathed, and yeah, there were ghosts at this party. But it was a family party and the ghosts were family ghosts.

Maybe it would all be all right. Maybe.

When Cassie and Janet left, Shifu did indeed wake up and fuss when Daniel had to collect him from Cassie's lap. They were probably in for another restless night. Sam insisted it was no trouble for her to take Teal'c back to the mountain -- in fact she hinted of heading to her lab for a while, now that she'd had dinner.

When the farewells were said, and the house was quiet again, Daniel changed the baby, feeling he was starting to get the hang of it, and Jack picked up the remaining party debris. Then Daniel took Shifu down to the rocking recliner in the basement and put him on his shoulder, since Jack had mentioned that had worked the night before.

Rocking the baby, feeling, once again, awkward and out of his depth, Daniel began humming. He tried snatches of songs he remembered from movies or the radio or from his own childhood, not worrying that he couldn't remember words or even an entire tune, letting himself skip around, and bracing himself against the memories that welled up. Shifu seemed to like his amateurish attempts. The baby settled, slowly, turning and squirming and making sporadic irritated noises. Daniel switched him to the other shoulder, which also seemed to help, and kept humming.

In the quiet, in the familiar refuge of Jack's house, he finally began to be able to hear himself think after the week's chaos. And he leaned his head back on the recliner's cushions and didn't even try to resist the wave of grief that washed over him, or hold back the tears that came to his eyes with the thoughts and images of Sha're; what she had suffered and what she had lost.

_She should be here,_ Daniel railed, inside his head. _This is her baby; she should be part of this._ His voice broke and the humming faltered. Sleepy Shifu was a warm weight on his shoulder, sweet-smelling, solid, and so alive.

_I miss you so much,_ he thought. _Sha're, I love you._

He heard quiet footsteps on the stairs, and so he pulled in a deep breath and focused on pulling himself together. Tried to think about putting Shifu down, about where he might sleep. In just a minute, he told himself, he would open his eyes. And then he felt Jack's soft touch on his face.

Daniel's eyes flew open, and it was all mirrored there in Jack's dark eyes -- love and loss and sympathy, right there, as if Jack could read his mind, see exactly what he felt. It made Daniel smile through his tears.

"I mean it," Daniel croaked. "Thank you. The words are inadequate. Thank you, Jack."

Jack cupped his cheek and leaned in, and they kissed. Nothing erotic about it, though that was always just below the surface for Daniel when he was in this man's presence. This time it wasn't a prelude to anything. Just connection and love and reassurance. Jack's lips were soft and warm and he tasted of beer and pizza.

Jack backed away, and sat down on the sofa and rested his elbows on his knees.

"So, taking some leave sounds right," he said, once again picking up a conversation left hanging, as if there had been no break at all.

"Beyond that, I have no idea," Daniel said. "If I stay on the team I'll need a nanny. If I don't--" and he chuckled at himself, at his own pathetic unpreparedness "--I'll need a nanny." He leaned his head back again. "God, Jack, what will I do? Tonight it all seems overwhelming."

"That's because it is. It's a huge change. For anybody, under any circumstances." Jack leaned back too; Daniel heard the cushions creak. "Stating the obvious here, but. You know I'm in, right?"

Daniel's eyes flew open, and he regarded with amazement the man sitting across from him. "I can't even comprehend what this is going to mean for us. I really can't. I've only barely begun to let myself believe that what we have is lasting and real, only barely begun to let it sink in that we're actually together, despite everything, and now...."

"Time and change," Jack said, ruefully.

"Shit," Daniel said.

"Really, Daniel, it's not just you. Kids change everything. Completely. Even if you plan for them, even if you know ahead of time that you want them.... You'll figure it out."

Daniel nodded. And tried to let himself believe it.

^^^^

The next day was a blurry mess of diapers, crying, spilled coffee, cereal on the floor that never got cleaned up, bathwater on the floor, wet towels, wet clothes, and Daniel felt the day passed in about ten minutes, because he was completely taken off guard when Jack walked in the door at 1730. Jack had takeout Chinese, which smelled heavenly, and a baby-care book: "What To Expect The First Year."

Daniel shoved Shifu at him and fled for the shower.

They traded off holding the baby, who was fussier than ever, while they ate dinner at the dining table.

"I checked out the video crew working at your place," Jack informed him, in between bouts of Shifu fussing. "They'll be done tomorrow. It's a pretty big mess right now."

"I don't want to know," Daniel moaned.

"You might want to head on up to the mountain tomorrow; sign your leave paperwork, see what else Janet can tell you about her tests. I can take a couple of days off. Stay with the baby while you do that, and maybe the day after, help you get set up at your place. I guess we better buy another crib to go over there."

"We," Daniel checked, tasting the word.

Jack shrugged, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

^^^^

Daniel took him up on it, and went to the mountain the next day and caught up on a couple of very urgent projects he'd been in the middle of for other teams before the Kheb mission. Then he parceled out the rest of his work to the other archaeologists and linguists, wrote an impassioned email to Hammond about Nyan and the promotion he deserved, and tried to wrap his mind around the fact that he'd be off for three months. It seemed incredible, to be trading the dangerous life he'd gotten used to, for the much more circumscribed life of a stay-at-home dad.

He ignored, feeling only a little guilty, four emails and two voicemails from Paul Davis. He could only imagine the Washington-induced outrage they contained.

That evening, he went home to Jack's place and was amazed to find it clean, even the kitchen, and Shifu _asleep_ (!!!) in a brand-new, battery-powered _baby swing_ in the living room. The swing's empty box, still partially covered in clear plastic wrap, stood in the corner. Jack, in sweats, a burp towel over his shoulder, his socked feet up on an ottoman, was drinking a beer and watching a hockey game with the sound low.

Daniel seriously thought about saying, "Honey, I'm home," but the words wouldn't come out of his mouth. He felt he'd been saying, "What the fuck?" way too much lately, at least mentally, so he didn't say that either. The neat condition of the house and the placid state of the baby gave him an attack of inadequacy. He stifled it. He merely kissed Jack and sat down on the sofa next to him. Jack took his hand, and then put his head back on the cushions.

"A baby swing saved my marriage," Jack observed.

"No, really?"

"Yes, really. It was the only place Charlie would sleep alone for more than twenty minutes for, oh, about three months."

"So," Daniel said, eyeing the swing, "you want a blow job?"

Jack grinned at him. "Before dinner?"

"Priorities, Jack," Daniel said, already getting up off the sofa. "Priorities."

^^^^

There were cameras in every room of Daniel's condo but the bathroom. Daniel hated it, but he thought about Hammond's implacable wall of defense against Simmons on his behalf, and then he thought about the _full genetic knowledge of the Goa'uld_ and he gritted his teeth, and said nothing.

He bought a twin bed and they set it up in the baby's room for Jack.

Jack went back to work as usual. Daniel introduced Shifu to the neighbors and found someone who would clean the condo once a week.

When he needed to talk to Jack, he put Shifu in the swing, turned up the stereo, and took his new, anonymously purchased cellphone out on the balcony, closing the french doors behind him. And every few days, and most weekends, he packed up a diaper bag and the baby and drove to Jack's house.

^^^^

They had a routine. Sort of. When Daniel and Shifu would come for a weekend, Jack would use all his tricks, from driving the baby around in the truck to warming blankets in the dryer, to get Shifu to go down in the crib. Once he even resorted to Benadryl, which worked, but it made him feel so guilty that he never tried it again. During the day, the swing helped. A lot.

Often, he could get Shifu to go down in his crib at night at least long enough for him and Daniel to fall into bed and enjoy some intense, urgent, pent-up-demand sex, and a nap. It felt kind of silly, how quick-and-dirty their sex life had become. Once again the circumstances flooded Jack with memories. He had to admit that desperate, squeezed-in sex for the two of them, being men, was actually qualitatively better than it had been for Sara. The old saying about men being microwaves and women, crock pots? Jack had to conclude it was true. Nowadays he and Daniel were equally deprived, and equally easy. Mutual blowjobs, sometimes in the shower, or sixty-nine on top of the bedspread, and they were good to go for another week. After sex, Daniel would sleep where he fell, his clothes sometimes half on and half off, and Jack knew better than to wake him and try to get him moved to a more comfortable position. Daniel was pushing himself to be the perfect father, as much as he'd ever pushed himself to do anything in his life, Jack knew. And he was sure that Shifu didn't sleep worth a damn at Daniel's place.

He'd been congratulating himself on his superior putting-to-bed-skills, but he got his comeuppance. One night, Jack put Shifu down, and then he and Daniel had their hasty, weekly vanilla sex. Daniel was out like a light, as usual, but Jack never fell asleep immediately. Instead, this time, as was his habit, he wandered the house, re-checking the locks, and also he carefully and silently checked on Shifu. He opened the door a crack to the baby's room, which was the spare bedroom that Daniel used to use, and saw a white glow that had nothing to do with nightlights or moonlight.

Jack frowned, immediately on high alert. Staying in the hall, he pushed the door further open with his fingertips. The crib was against the far wall, and he could see the sleeping baby through its bars, the pale circle of his face turned toward the door. All around him, like a saint's nimbus, was that same light he'd seen on Kheb.

Jack shivered, suppressed a bone-deep urge to cross himself, and backed into the hall.

It was a long time before he could go to bed.

At breakfast the next morning, he took a deep breath and told Daniel what he'd seen. Daniel listened, wide-eyed.

"I think Oma is still helping him," Jack summed up.

"And she doesn't want the guys in the white coats to know," Daniel mused. "Which is why I haven't seen anything of the sort at my place."

"Yup."

"And why he doesn't sleep worth a damn over there."

"I wondered about that."

"Yeah, and now you can stop congratulating yourself on how much better a job you do of putting him down, can't you?"

They both grinned, sheepishly. Then Daniel looked troubled.

Jack knew what he was thinking. What if this meant that the harcesis thing really was going to be a problem when Shifu was older? What if Oma wasn't just helping them through a spell of colic? Shifu was too old for classic colic, anyway. His sleep problems were much worse than normal, according to everything Daniel had read, Daniel had informed Jack. And Jack's experience said the same. They hadn't said much to Janet about it, figuring it would get better with time, but if Oma was keeping tabs? Visiting Earth? That wasn't something they could keep from Hammond, or Janet, indefinitely.

^^^^

Daniel's block of family leave was ticking away. Jack, Carter and Teal'c, holding Daniel's spot for him on SG-1, had survived an encounter with a new scourge that the Asgard called the 'replicators,' an ill-advised Tok'ra experiment with some superhero armbands, and an expedition to Russia that resulted in the discovery of a new species of water-like sentient aliens. Among other things.

In the meantime, Daniel had become a dab hand at changing diapers, and Shifu was demonstrating a distinct love of cinnamon applesauce and homemade, mashed, sweet-potatoes, but he still wasn't sleeping at night for shit. He would sleep in his crib at Daniel's place sometimes, but only during the day. Daniel felt those naps, and the swing, were the only things allowing him to cling to sanity.

One weekday morning, he was making breakfast, with Shifu in a playpen in a corner of the kitchen, sitting up with the three Beanie Baby cats that had been his first toys and were still his favorites, when the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Doctor Jackson, I'm sorry to bother you at home. It's George Hammond."

"Sir, hello. It's no bother; what can I do for you?" His tone was cheerful, but Daniel's heart sank.

"How is that baby getting on?" Hammond asked, and Daniel was obliged to spend several anxious minutes detailing the baby's development. It didn't help that Daniel knew Hammond really cared, really wanted to know, directly from him, and not in a Military Asset sort of way, and not because he was angling for more information than he got from the written reports of Janet's regular-as-clockwork checkups. There had to be another reason he'd called, and Daniel knew they were just politely filling time until Hammond felt he could broach it.

"Well, son, any time you like, you bring him up here for a visit. You don't have to wait for his official medical appointments, you know."

"Of course, sir, and you know you're always welcome here."

"Thank you, Doctor Jackson. That's good to hear. And you're probably stewing, wondering why in the heck I called you at home when you're supposed to be enjoying your family leave."

"No, sir. Not at all."

Hammond laughed. "Well. I hate to have to ask you this, but I'm looking at the collection of surveillance tapes here. As you know, the cameras in your apartment are triggered by motion. But there are long stretches, entire weekends, even, when they register nothing."

Daniel went cold all over. "Well, that would be when I head over to Jack's for a night, or for the weekend, sir."

"Ah."

"He's great with the baby. He did offer to help me any time I needed it."

"I see. Thank you for the information, Doctor Jackson. And best wishes to you and your boy. That was all I needed."

"Thank you, sir. No trouble at all."

"Take care."

^^^^

Jack, early for his shift, still in civvies, had just pulled some exercise clothes out of his locker when the intercom chimed. It was Walter's chipper voice over the speaker.

"Colonel O'Neill, report to General Hammond's office."

Well, it didn't sound like an emergency. But Jack was prompt nevertheless.

"Sir?" Jack said, knocking at the general's doorjamb. The door was standing half open, as usual.

Hammond lifted his head and put down his pen. He folded his hands on the stack of reports. "I just now spoke by phone with Doctor Jackson. He tells me that the explanation for these enormous gaps in the security tapes is that he's spending substantial amounts of your down time at your home."

There was a slight pause. Then Jack said, dutifully, "Yes, sir."

Hammond raised his eyebrows. Jack knew he was expected to explain. He cleared his throat. He noted that Hammond had not asked him to sit. "I do have some experience with having a kid in the house, sir. More than Daniel does. And you know how it is: We, SG-1, that is; we're the only family Daniel has."

"But he's not spending any weekends at Major Carter's home, is he?"

A shiver went up Jack's spine. "No, sir."

Hammond glared. "Ordinarily this kind of thing would be most emphatically none of my business. But when Doctor Jackson is not at his own home, Washington isn't getting their surveillance. The surveillance that prevented a much more intrusive level of concern with Shifu, if you recall."

"Yes, sir," Jack said.

"Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir."

Hammond returned his attention to his reports. Jack didn't need to be dismissed in words.

^^^^

They spent that week at Daniel's, and all that weekend. They slept in separate beds there, of course. They had to go out on the balcony to talk about anything important. They had sex only in the shower, and even that felt like a big risk. Jack made rude gestures and performed what to him were funny puppet shows for the surveillance cameras when he got bored. Daniel, with a pained expression, tried to deflect him. He was sure they were already in enough trouble.

And, of course, Shifu's sleep patterns abruptly took a turn for the worse, because he wasn't getting any time at Jack's. Which meant, he didn't get any visits from the white light. His crankiness increased. A lot.

Jack dozed fitfully when the baby did, and kept trying to keep him in the crib at night. But both nights it was a losing battle. He stayed in the baby's room at Daniel's place, so that Daniel could at least try to catch up on sleep. And a lot of those nights he was propped against pillows on his bed, sitting up, with Shifu dozing uneasily on his shoulder. Or he was walking the floor.

A couple of weeks went by. Finally Daniel couldn't take it any more. Standing out on his balcony, arms crossed, he hissed at Jack, "This is ridiculous. They can go fuck themselves for one weekend."

Jack had grave reservations, but he couldn't say no.

And sure enough -- both nights at Jack's place, Shifu slept for long stretches, peacefully, in his crib in the spare room. Surrounded by the white light.

A Monday morning came, all too soon, as Monday morning always did. Jack drove back to Daniel's place, to drop father and baby off on his way to work. At the stoplight on Cascade, six blocks from Daniel's building, Jack leaned over for his goodbye kiss. In front of Daniel's place, he let Daniel out at the curb, and waited while he boosted the baby out of the car seat that was now a permanent fixture in the back bench of Jack's truck. (There was an identical car seat in the back of Daniel's Honda.)

"Call me," Daniel said, and Jack nodded, and Daniel and the baby vanished inside.

Jack stewed all day. Carter was in her lab, reverse engineering some doohickey they'd brought back from the last planet. Teal'c was gone, asked by Bra'tac to accompany him to a system where there were rumors of war refugees from Chulak.

After work, Jack went straight back to Daniel's, bearing takeout.

"Let's take the baby to the park," Jack said brightly. Daniel raised his eyebrows, but didn't ask any questions, or protest. Even though the only park within walking distance was noisy and small, just a green postage stamp in a downtown block, more of a dog-walking stop than anything. It wasn't really a baby-friendly destination. But they broke out the stroller and Jack grabbed a couple of cans of soda and they walked the short distance, and found a bench where they could munch on their dinner. Jack hooked his toes in the stroller's struts and rolled the baby back and forth as he ate.

"Your leave's up in eight days," Jack observed.

"Yeah."

"And?"

"I've been in denial about it." Daniel sighed and leaned back, wadding up a paper sack, smacking it with one hand.

Jack let him think. He knew Daniel would think out loud, and that was good, because Jack's day of stewing had produced a plan, and maybe Daniel would think of some of it first and Jack wouldn't have to beat him over the head to get him to agree with it.

A straight couple with a pair of chocolate Labs on leashes passed them before turning into the park. The lights at the corner changed twice. A breeze sprang up.

Finally, Daniel said, "I'm worried. I'm worried about a lot of things, but mostly I'm worried about what might be happening to Shifu. I'm worried about the degree to which Oma is having to somehow intervene, though I haven't got the least idea what the mechanisms of that are. I'm embarrassed and appalled at how hard the everyday drudgery is of taking care of an infant. And I'm mad as fuck about the surveillance."

Jack waited. Daniel thought some more, then he ran his hands through his hair and half-turned to Jack.

"I think that's it for now. What have you got?"

Jack opened his mouth to tell him, but Shifu dropped his bottle and Daniel had to pick it up out of the dirt and go rinse it off in the water fountain. Jack dug around in the diaper bag stuffed under the seat of the stroller and found some graham crackers for the baby to gnaw on.

"I'm worried about the surveillance, too," Jack said, when Daniel came back and handed Shifu the bottle. "I'm worried what they'll find, or what they won't find. And when he starts crawling and talking they'll probably want more."

Daniel sat down heavily. He was frowning. "I can see the memo now. Simmons gearing up to interrogate a one-year-old."

"Charlie talked at ten months," Jack said absently, getting the stroller moving back and forth again. Daniel was staring at him; he could feel it.

"Shit. Here's the other thing," Daniel said. "I feel like I should, ought to, want to stay with Shifu indefinitely; I almost feel like I should resign. But on the other hand, I don't think I have the trust fund to just quit. And there are things out there that I feel best qualified to do. I'm very torn about that. I think that's the main thing I've been avoiding thinking about. Maybe an extended leave of absence? Until he's older? And the harcesis question is resolved? But then... That raises the new question of.... I just.... I can't imagine leaving the program. I've thought about day care, about hiring someone, but this whole harcesis thing is...."

"Frightening," Jack finished for him. "For someone outside the program."

Daniel laughed without humor. "Yeah. That. Understatement. We'd have to find someone with clearance, or recruit someone who could qualify for it. But I don't really want to do that either.... I went out on such a fragile limb to get him here at all. I hate to, you know, farm him out."

"Good daycare isn't 'farming out.' People do it every day. Single parents, married parents... it's perfectly fine. You're just a perfectionist with control-freak tendencies."

Daniel laughed. It made the wrinkles in his forehead go away. "You're shit at therapy, Jack. What is this about? Why did you bring us out here?"

Jack looked at him, thinking hard. Daniel waited him out.

Jack said, "I'm not opposed to getting him into day care. If that's what you want. But. Let me quit. Let me take care of him."

Daniel looked stunned. "You're not serious."

"I am."

"You'd retire."

"Yup."

Daniel was staring, incredulous. The stroller developed a squeak in the off rear wheel as Jack rolled it back and forth. "Jack, why?"

Jack arched his spine against the bench, and contemplated the cars going by, the lone scraggly tree in the lousy excuse for a park, the roofs of the buildings around them, the mountain peaks beyond. He wasn't sure he was ready to put this into words. He wasn't sure he understood it.

Before he could gather his thoughts, Daniel said, "You don't owe me that. And you don't have some cosmic obligation to embrace a second chance with fatherhood, you know. There's no connection--"

"I know," Jack interrupted. It annoyed him, that Daniel would think that, think that this was about Charlie. Maybe Jack had given the wrong impression, talking about Charlie so much, bringing up things he'd learned from Charlie's infancy that were helping him take care of Shifu now. But, to be fair, what else was Daniel supposed to think? Jack hadn't given him any clues, any hints, about his motivations or his feelings, really. Jack had just stepped in and done what needed to be done. Like always. But Jack should have known that sooner or later, Daniel would want an explanation. For the help he'd given so far, and for his plan for the future.

Jack said, slowly, "If someone I knew -- from my old unit, maybe; someone I knew but that I hadn't seen in awhile -- walked up right now, right here, and saw us sitting here with the baby. Or some friend of mine, like John, you know, the sheriff out where I live--"

"You play poker with him," Daniel said softly.

"Right. If someone like that walked up right now and I introduced you two, you know what I'd be tempted to say? What would want to come out of my mouth?" Daniel frowned, but just waited, no prodding questions. "I'd be tempted to say, 'This is my stepson, and that's his dad.' " And Jack pointed to Daniel.

Daniel's expression softened, went all unbelieving and yearning.

"It's right here in front of us, Daniel. It happened before you understood it. Maybe I understood it quicker, only because you haven't been through this family thing before."

"But you can't expect me to assume.... But, with Cassie, it was different...."

"Haven't you ever talked to Carter about what she feels for that kid? How she and Janet negotiated this same stuff? They aren't--" and Jack waved his hand between himself and Daniel -- "at least, I don't get that they are. But you're right about Cassie. That's what I mean exactly. We're all family now. Shifu came in with a closer connection to you. That's the only difference. But he's mine now. Too."

Daniel leaned back. Jack carefully kept rocking the stroller with his foot. A pair of crows flew from the roof of the building next door to the top of the scraggly lone tree, complaining all the way.

"I don't know what to say," Daniel said. "I'm.... I love you."

Jack reached over and squeezed his thigh. Then he took his hand away, though he didn't really want to. Maybe next week he wouldn't have to. The thought made him curiously buoyant. "I love you too," Jack said. It was the only possible response, but heartfelt and true all the same. It occurred to him how rarely they said it. But it didn't seem superfluous, or rote, not now. Not in this moment when everything was changing. Again.

"I'm good at this," Jack went on, after a pause, carefully. "I was good at it before. Sara and I, we were happy when it was just us. But when Charlie came along, it was so much more... it was right. More right. I can't explain it. What happened to him..." He trailed off. He wasn't sure he would ever be ready to put that into words, either -- the burden that was, whatever Daniel believed, a debt that his soul would carry for eternity. Something that could never be made up for, or healed, or fixed. It could only be mourned, and then set aside just enough for life to go on. It was almost laughable if Daniel thought that by taking care of Shifu, Jack could somehow make a difference in his own complicity in Charlie's death. The two things had absolutely nothing to do with each other.

Jack went on, "I know we haven't talked about it and we've squeezed our 'us' in between a lot of other stuff -- the war, the exploring, the Air Force, all that. And it's important and we have to save the galaxy. I know all that and I know you know it." He sighed and looked away. "But here's this baby, and I've already retired twice and he's your son and I love kids and... this is a hell of a good reason to retire again. You know?"

Daniel was still staring at him, mouth open.

"Doctor Jackson, speechless. That's a point to me." Jack got up and started picking up their dinner trash, wadding it up and chucking it in the nearby can. "Don't say anything now. Just think about it. Sleep on it. But you know it makes sense."

^^^^

That night, after Jack had gone home to his house in the canyon, Daniel slept on it, or, really, napped on it, between bouts of walking the floor. At some point in his broken-up night, he dreamed. He dreamed Shifu was crying, standing up in his crib, having pulled up to stand, like he'd just barely begun doing in the daytime, so shaky and uncertain, and when Daniel went in to him, he said to Daniel, with tears on his face, "Kek kel shak. Kek kel shak." Over and over, as if his heart would break.

_"It's all over; you're finished."_

Daniel woke with a start and stared at the dim ceiling, his heart pounding, his hands like ice. A few minutes later, Shifu began to cry, for real.

Daniel shook off the dream, got up, scrubbed his face, and went to see what he could do for the baby.

^^^^

Daniel had scheduled Shifu's regular checkup with Janet for that same week, and he realized, driving up to the mountain, that there was no reason he couldn't go ahead and tell the general that he would definitely be coming back, that he would need only a couple more weeks at home -- the time frame would depend on what Jack did, in his turn. Daniel wasn't sure how long it took to process a retirement. He should have asked Jack.

He still couldn't believe it.

He was holding Shifu in his lap, sitting on a bed in the infirmary, waiting, as Janet listened to the baby's heart, when Jack appeared in the doorway.

"Hey," Daniel said.

"Hey," Jack said.

"Colonel," Janet said, without turning. And to Daniel: "I need to do a new EEG this time. And that means sedation, I'm afraid."

"I understand," Daniel said, with only a slight shiver. The price they paid for knowledge.

Janet turned away to prepare the hypodermic, and Daniel braced himself for the screaming.

When he'd surrendered Shifu to her careful, knowledgeable arms, and she'd carried him away to the scanning room, he turned to Jack. "You going to tell Hammond today? That you're retiring?"

"You ready for that, really?"

Daniel regarded him for a long minute. "It's not the second career I'd imagined for you, but if you're ready, I am. I already told him I was coming back to SG-1 next week."

Jack grinned at him, and turned on his heel and headed for Hammond's office.

^^^^

Same knock on the door jamb, same interruption of the ever-busy pen.

"What can I do for you, colonel?"

Jack put his hands behind his back. "Sir, before the day is over, you will see on your desk my retirement paperwork."

Hammond raised his eyebrows, but he didn't look surprised. That made the rest of the message easier, but only a little. Because not saying what he was about to say was as ingrained as any secret he'd ever kept, back in his Special Ops days, and was something he'd kept as deeply hidden as he kept the secret of the Stargate. Jack raised his chin a little.

"Daniel is coming back to SG-1, as you already know, but also? He and the baby are moving in with me as soon as possible. Permanently, I mean. The Air Force can't do anything to him for that, thank goodness."

Hammond frowned. "You know how sorry we'll be to lose you, Jack." He paused, as if weighing his right to ask, and then he said, slowly: "Are you sure this is what you want?"

It occurred to Jack that Hammond didn't look surprised at all. He didn't know whether to be relieved about that, or to wonder just how lousy a job he'd done over the years at concealing his feelings for Daniel.

He answered, "Sure as I've ever been, sir. About anything."

Hammond looked down at his desk. "I know you both must be thinking of what's best for the baby, but.... Well. You know that this is going to make waves. Of various kinds. In Washington."

"I know, sir." Jack took a deep breath. "But I'm not resigning my commission." He found himself possessed of a curious, pent-up vehemence. "They can damn well come after me and make an issue of it -- if they want to piss off Doctor Jackson and lose him from the program too."

Hammond smiled, but it was rueful. "You are a poker player, aren't you, Jack." Then he stood up and offered his hand. Jack shook it. It wasn't regulation. At all. Hammond said, still smiling, "I wish I could be a fly on the wall when Washington gets the memo. Congratulations. I think."

^^^^

Of course, there was another party. Jack had so much leave stored up that even though his official separation was a couple of months in the future, he was planning on spending most of his time with Shifu starting immediately.

An assortment of SGC personnel from every department showed up to wish them well. Some brought housewarming-type gifts, some brought things for the baby. Jack was amazed at the range of good wishes and outright emotion he saw expressed, and from the most unlikely people. Colonel Pierce, for example, hugged him, hard and long -- something he'd never done before. Jack could guess only too easily what that meant.

_Someday,_ Jack thought, thumping Pierce's back. _Someday._ But the battles Jack fought tended to be very personal. Grand, big-picture change wasn't his style. Leave that to the Major Davises of the world. Who, by the way, hadn't come in person to the party, but had sent Jack a surprising and supportive encrypted email.

As the evening wound down, once again, the lingerers were family -- SG-1, Doc Fraiser, Cassie.

Carter had Shifu duty for the moment. The noise and excitement had meant there was absolutely no point in trying to put him down, in bed or in the swing. Jack flopped beside her on the living room floor. She was playing "Where's The Baby," a variant of peekaboo, and making Shifu, sprawled on a blanket, laugh until he hiccupped.

"You have a gift, Carter," Jack said. "All our intergalactic waifs adore you."

She twinkled at him. "I do have my reputation to uphold as the world's greatest aunt." She hid her face, sending Shifu into another peal. "I missed out on this with Mark's girls. I feel bad about that."

"You can't make up for lost time. Not really."

She looked at him sidelong, as if to say, _"Are you telling me that, or telling yourself?"_ But she left it at that look.

Jack rolled up to sitting, and crossed his legs. "I told Hammond I highly recommend you to take command of SG-1."

"Thank you, sir."

Their eyes met. He could feel the weight of all the unsaid things. She'd accepted his relationship with Daniel without so much as a raised eyebrow, as had Teal'c, which made him wonder, again, if the two of them had been really obvious, or if she and T. just really did know them both that well. And he was grateful all over again for how lucky he'd been in having Hammond for his C.O.

But it would be all different now.

^^^^

Jack had thought Daniel would be tired; exhausted, even, after the party and after a week of moving crap and getting out of his apartment, plus the emotional drain of facing up to making their relationship public; or, at least, as public as it could be.

But it was Daniel's second night to actually live here, and both nights he had shown an amazing enthusiasm for re-establishing his residency from the skin out. Jack, as always, had been willing to go with the flow.

Friday night it had been a greedy, restless Daniel, who had paced and fussed and unpacked and rearranged all day, and who had fallen asleep on the living room sofa and then had, presumably, gotten up to see to Shifu and then made a midnight snack of leftovers, based on the mess in the kitchen Jack found the following morning, before he'd slid into bed and turned Jack's sleepy kisses of greeting into some very attentive, very focused fucking, Daniel on top.

And then tonight it had been a very different Daniel. One who had pulled and tugged and maneuvered until he had Jack braced over him, pressing groin to groin, gently yet relentlessly, as Daniel wrapped his arms around Jack's neck and kissed him to distraction. Then Daniel wrapped his legs around Jack's hips, and his intentions couldn't have been more clear.

Go with the flow. Definitely. As Jack was still pleasantly and unmistakably sore from the previous night's adventures, switching was only logical.

^^^^

Somehow, whether it was because of Hammond or someone higher up -- Daniel never found out -- the surveillance plan changed. At Jack's house, the new cameras were installed only in the living room and the baby's room. That meant the three of them spent less time in the basement, but Jack said it was just as well that the kid didn't develop a TV habit too early.

They were both holding their breath as they tried to settle into the new routine, both of them waiting for some kind of formal reprimand, or a DADT investigation into Jack's flouting of the regs.

But as it turned out, it was Shifu's sleep deprivation meltdown that came first.

Because the surveillance, as they had both feared, meant an end to the visits from the white light. And that meant no good sleep, ever, for Shifu.

Daniel came home from three easy days off world to find Jack sitting on the back deck with Shifu on his shoulder. It was the crying Daniel heard first, when he came in the front door, and words of greeting died on his lips.

He was well practiced now in identifying all the baby's cries -- the good ones, the bad ones, the ignorable ones, the ones that meant danger. This one was like nothing he'd heard before. He followed the sound through the quiet, dim house, to the deck, where the evening shadows were long in the soft air.

Jack was sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs. Shifu was on his shoulder, crying in an utterly exhausted way that said "despair" and "horror" to Daniel. In big letters.

Daniel walked up to Jack and held out his arms. Jack looked hollow. He had dark circles under his eyes. He stood up slowly and gave the baby to Daniel, and waited beside them, a hand on the back of his own neck.

Shifu pounded on Daniel with little angry fists for a few moments, frowning at him angrily. His nose was running. Then he then subsided limply against his chest, crying in that same defeated, utterly angry tone, with an occasional whimper to break the harsh keening.

"How long?" Daniel said, patting Shifu's back.

"Since about three this morning," Jack said. "And that's without stopping at all." He turned and went into the house. Slowly.

Daniel sighed and sat down. The chair seat was warm. Shifu kept crying.

After about a half hour, Jack came back out. Daniel hadn't gotten up to turn on a porch light. Jack had changed shirts and his hair was damp, as if he'd washed his face.

"This is wrong," Jack said, his voice pitched to carry under Shifu's pitiful sounds. "We can't.... This can't go on. We're going to have to bring in Janet again. Or something."

Daniel met his eyes over Shifu's back. He got up slowly, and paced out into the middle of the lawn, the baby still wailing angrily on his shoulder. He raised his face to the sky and closed his eyes.

"Please," he said. "Oma Desala. I believe you can hear me. Please come back. We have to risk this. It can't go on like this. We know what might happen, but we need you. Shifu needs you. Help us. Please."

Nothing happened for a few moments. Then Daniel felt a change in the darkness, something sensed even through closed eyelids. Light was growing. He opened his eyes. Light, like white fog, was collecting between him and the dark sky. The white light grew in intensity until he and the baby were bathed in it. It had no source that Daniel could see. It didn't come from above, or from inside them. It just slowly grew around them, enfolding them. It had no temperature. It brought no breeze. Daniel just stood there, his face upturned, and waited.

Shifu stopped crying.

^^^^

It took about three weeks for the shit to hit the fan.

Three weeks for Shifu's white nightlight to show up on the surveillance tapes and be identified by the Washington bunch when they watched that batch. Jack joked that at least the three of them had gotten a chance to catch up on their sleep.

The delegation that arrived at the SGC in high dudgeon had sent a car to fetch Jack and Shifu. He'd had a heads up from Daniel, though, so he simply sighed after he got the call, and packed, and strapped the baby into his seat in the back of the truck, and took off, driving himself instead of waiting to be driven. The goon squad passed him on the access road to 115, and he enjoyed watching them get themselves turned around in a squeal of tires and become tail instead of escort.

When Jack appeared with the baby in the conference room, the usual cast of characters was assembled, and Hammond looked like a thundercloud.

Simmons snapped, "You were told not to notify Colonel O'Neill ahead of time," and he glowered at Daniel across the conference table.

Daniel merely raised his eyebrows.

Simmons straightened his shoulders and folded his hands on the table. He turned to Jack, who was leaning back in a chair, bouncing the baby on his knee. "There's no official reason for you to be here, colonel. You're not part of this program any more. I'm amazed you still have clearance, frankly." This with a glare at Hammond.

"Oh, I do some consulting. This and that," Jack said. Shifu began trying to climb onto the table. Daniel distracted him with a ring of keys.

Simmons droned on. "In any case, you have no standing to attend this meeting. You are excused."

Jack pulled out of his lapel pocket a copy of the guardianship papers he and Daniel had had drawn up. Simmons read them, and his lip curled.

"You know despite whatever flimsy legal machinations you think you can create on paper, retirement doesn't mean you're beyond the reach of the law regarding inappropriate relationships for military personnel. You swore an oath. I'd think about that a little more thoroughly, colonel."

"What's your purpose in calling the baby here, Simmons?" Hammond interrupted, just as Jack opened his mouth to retaliate. Daniel was biting his lip, shaking his keys at Shifu, doing his best to keep the baby's attention on him.

Simmons narrowed his eyes, but he still deferred to Hammond. He indicated the stranger in civvies seated next to him. "This is Doctor Haynes. He's a pediatric neurologist who has been given full clearance. We need an objective examination of Shifu. We'll start today, and then we'll take steps to move this baby to a secure location in the Washington area. It's simply unconscionable that you have allowed the deception to continue, General. Alien beings regularly visiting Colorado Springs? Putting civilians intentionally at risk? It must stop. The Pentagon will act."

Jack said, calmly, before any words could come out of Daniel's open mouth, "We're not moving Shifu to Washington. Anything you need watched on him can be done from here."

"Didn't I already make it clear what thin ice you're on, Colonel? But then, subtlety never was one of your strong points, was it?"

Fraiser appeared in the doorway and Hammond stood. "Doctor Fraiser. If you would accompany Doctor Haynes."

"We expect your full cooperation, Doctor Fraiser," Simmons said.

She merely smiled at Jack and said, "You just can't stay away, can you, sir?"

"Just like a bad penny," Jack said, and reached out for the baby. "Come on big, guy, let's go." When he caught sight of Fraiser, Shifu had begun to cry. He knew what it meant when Janet showed up. Tests, needles, scary cold places.... "I know," Jack said, patting the baby's back, meeting Daniel's resigned gaze. "I know."

^^^^

There was human surveillance around the house, teams of six, when Jack got back home with the baby. He'd been told it would be 24/7 now, but somehow Hammond had called in some more markers and prevented Simmons from taking Shifu to Washington.

Jack ignored the men in suits with their mikes and their concealed 9-mills and their black van. But they were there; around the clock. Daniel, with a heavy heart, went off world as usual with Sam and Teal'c on the second day.

Jack had no idea how Hammond was spinning the Oma thing to Washington. But Jack had only seen Hammond this angry once or twice in ten years.

Before Daniel went off world, he and Jack talked about running, about going to ground somewhere on Earth. They even talked about escaping off world. Finally, they decided to give it a few more days, see what the ultimatum from Washington actually amounted to.

But when Daniel got back from the mission, he didn't come home. He called Jack from the mountain. "You'd better get up here," he said, and Jack could hear the fear in his voice. "They've flown Davis in."

"Not Simmons?"

"No."

"Small mercies."

^^^

"Absolutely not," Hammond said, so Jack didn't have to.

"I'm sorry," Davis said again. He looked like he was being forced to eat a lemon.

Jack knew how much Davis hated being the go-to guy for the bureaucrats. But he figured Davis was hating it more than usual this time.

"He's not even a year old," Daniel repeated. The baby was on his shoulder, chewing on his own fist, watching them all curiously.

"I know, Doctor Jackson. I know," Davis said, his eyes fixed on the table top in front of him.

Daniel met Jack's eyes.

"No," Jack said. "No to using the Tok'ra memory device on a baby. No to Washington. No to all of it. No."

Davis looked at him, imploring.

Hammond got up, and Jack got up too, and so Davis did. "I'm sure you understand that I have to take this over your head, Major," Hammond said. Davis said nothing, but he nodded and began to pull his files into a pile. He looked pale.

"Wait," Daniel said, his free hand pressed flat against the glossy table top. The knuckles were white. "What if we fixed this permanently? What if Oma could fix it?"

"I beg your pardon?" Hammond said.

Daniel said, and his voice was strained, "We haven't asked Oma to do anything except help us with the sleeping problem. We have no idea, actually, what she could do. If he is the harcesis, what if she can take that ability away from him?"

"Take it away?" Hammond demanded. "We don't even know for sure that he has it."

"Let's go straight to the source," Daniel said. "Please. You know we can't let Washington do these drastic things. We won't let them use that device on our son."

Hammond inhaled, his gaze locked to Daniel's. "You're suggesting going back to Kheb. Taking the baby back there."

"Yes."

Hammond frowned. The moment stretched out.

"They call her Mother Nature, sir," Daniel reminded him. And Jack's memory cast back, to that mission where they'd found Shifu in the first place. Back to the french-friend Jaffa, the gathering clouds, the fire, the disappearing and reappearing monk. A chill ran up his spine.

Hammond looked at Davis, as if daring him to interfere.

"That isn't a contingency I was briefed for, sir," Davis said, the words coming reluctantly, but there was relief in his eyes.

Hammond squared his shoulders. "Major Davis, I'm sending you to Kheb with Doctor Jackson and Shifu. To document their trip. Thoroughly. Colonel O'Neill will stay here. So, are you going to check with Washington first?"

Davis shook his head. "I'm ready, sir," he said.

Jack swallowed, any protest he might have made dying on his lips. So he would be a hostage, at home. That was a new one. And if he'd wondered what it would take for Davis to finally come out of his pose of neutrality and take sides, well, he didn't have to wonder any more.

^^^

Daniel trudged through the forest, the baby a boneless weight on his shoulder. Shifu had fallen asleep within a hundred yards of the Kheb gate.

Paul was just behind him, radiating sympathy and fear. There were Marines in front and behind. SG-5 and SG-12, and their faces were friendly, but Daniel wished, intently and futilely, for Sam and Teal'c instead. Sam hadn't said much, through this whole showdown with D.C., feeling very constrained by the military rules Jack was flouting, and also feeling very much in the spotlight since she'd been promoted. At least that's what Daniel assumed. He was so grateful that she allowed him to work when he was at work, to continue their missions as if nothing weird was going on at home. _Amazing what passes for normal in my life,_ he had thought, ruefully.

But today, Sam had come to the control room and made a production of checking and rechecking the dialing program and the Kheb address. She'd sent through the MALP herself, and when Daniel and Paul and the Marines were on the ramp, she'd broken protocol and stalked right up to Daniel, hugged him tight, and kissed Shifu. "Come home safe," she'd whispered. Daniel had to swallow to hold back sudden tears.

Teal'c, for his part, had come to Daniel's lab late one night and offered, in whispered fragments, half in Chulak, half in SG-1's personal code, his offworld contacts. Offered an escape.

Daniel had been moved beyond words by both gestures, and he'd thought more than once since that night that maybe he should have taken Teal'c up on it. Simplified all this for everyone.

But all he had to do was look into Shifu's eyes, which indeed had changed from blue to brown, and he could see the person this little soul would someday be, and the memory of his mother, hovering behind him like a guardian angel, and his path was clear.

It was amazing, really, how little he and Jack had to talk in order to make the decision.

The Kheb temple was just the same, emerging out of the mist, the grass dew-covered, the sun too bright. The footfalls of the Marines seemed loud. Or maybe it was just the blood pounding in his ears.

He didn't look to see if Paul was following. He let Coburn give his orders and deploy his troops, and didn't worry about that either. He patted the baby, and set his hand to the heavy door and pulled it open.

The temple interior was dark and cool after the bright daylight. He realized, too late, that he should have taken off his shoes, but it would be hard to do that while holding Shifu.

He inhaled sharply as the torches flared to life, one by one, around the big room. The eight-pointed star was laid out on the floor, as before. Nothing at all seemed to have changed. He stepped over the lip of the star and seated himself on the sand, Shifu in his lap. The baby woke, but was strangely silent and calm, looking around with big eyes, barely moving.

Daniel looked around the empty room, and glanced at the baby, and when he looked up again, an orange-robed monk was sitting across from him, cross legged.

"Welcome back, Daniel Jackson. Welcome back, Shifu," he said.

"Thank you," Daniel answered, and then words deserted him.

The monk waited, smiling pleasantly as Daniel groped for what to say.

"You already know who we are. Oma Desala knows us."

The monk waited, unmoving, but listening.

Daniel thought, _If Jack were here, he would cut to the chase._ "If this baby is harcesis," Daniel said, "I believe it will be dangerous for him to grow up, carrying that knowledge. So far he has been safe, but there are people on Earth who want the knowledge more than they want his safety or his wellbeing. That is not acceptable to me."

The monk said, " 'What will it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?' "

Daniel blinked repeatedly. That was a shock. "Well, yes, exactly. So I can't let them hurt him. That's why we've come. And your saying, you quote -- that kind of applies to both Shifu, and to the people in Washington, now, doesn't it?" He tightened his grip on the baby, grateful he was sitting down. It was much harder than he'd predicted to be back here in this place. Memories were pushing at him, memories and feelings. He really didn't want to relive all his hopes and fears from before he knew what he was getting into, when he was simply on a bloodless quest given him by Sha're. It was all different now, now that he knew this boy. Now that he had a son.

He tried to focus. "I believe that Oma can change him. Take away the part of him that is dangerous, take away his harcesis memories. They aren't part of him; not really. They belong to the Goa'uld. He needs to be able to live without them. Oma can do so much -- please; can't she do this too?"

"You wish for him to live as Shifu only. Not as harcesis."

"Yes, exactly," Daniel said, his heart beating hard.

The monk closed his eyes. Daniel waited, his frustration building as the seconds ticked by and nothing happened. He focused on patting the baby's back. If this went on too long, there'd be diapers to deal with, and Shifu would get hungry. He'd brought a bottle and some snacks. Maybe it would be enough.

The monk opened his eyes. "To the brook trout, the way of the mountain goat seems impossible. To the mountain goat, his way is the only way."

The monk stood up and gathered his robes around him. He bowed toward Daniel and the baby.

Daniel hastily rose. "Wait -- what's that supposed to mean? Two creatures, two beings, can't understand each others' ways; so what? What has that got to do with us?"

"Shifu has been set on a path," the monk said. "You may not understand it or desire it, but it is his life to live."

"Wait! You don't understand. If Oma doesn't take away his knowledge of the Goa'uld, our military will try to take him away from me. I'm his father; I simply won't let that happen."

"Oma teaches that each of us must go his own way."

Daniel inhaled sharply as the baby stirred. He tried to keep his voice calm. "Oma's already watching him, or sending someone or something to watch for her. You must know about the white light, back on earth. Shifu is already suffering. Something is wrong. Something is preventing him from resting and having a normal life. Oma is already using the white light to let him sleep. I'm afraid he really is the harcesis. Surely you see how dangerous this is, for him objectively, and because of what the people on Earth will try to do to. That's why he was here with Oma in the first place."

"All who seek refuge on Kheb find it, if they can release their burdens," the monk said.

"I know that! You keep saying that! But I also know that I have a responsibility to this child, which I have no intention of releasing, and also that Oma can and will help us -- if she chooses to. I know she has the power."

"Oma teaches that everyone walks his own path. It is a mistake to interfere with the destiny of another."

"Well, if it's Shifu's destiny to grow up with the full knowledge of the Goa'uld, I'm here to tell you, I think that's a destiny that should be interfered with! And Sha're agreed; otherwise why would she tell me to come and find him after Amanuet had left him here?"

The monk stood still and closed his eyes again.

Daniel insisted, "You've got to help us! You can't just stand there and tell me it's right for me to watch and do nothing while my son suffers -- to knowingly risk his safety like this. That's not any kind of compassion that I understand. That's not what parents do! It's because of the Goa'uld that this happened to Shifu. It had nothing to do with destiny. Sha're didn't want this for him and neither do I!"

The monk stood, unmoving, and suddenly Daniel was aware of light growing between them, white light that he had seen before, so familiar now and so strange. It had no source, but it expanded from a single point in the space between Daniel and Shifu, and the monk, until its brightness blotted out everything in the room, filling Daniel's senses. Shifu shivered and cowered closer into Daniel's arms. Daniel had to close his eyes against the unbearable brightness.

"Daniel Jackson," the monk was saying, and Daniel had a sense that he'd repeated it, perhaps more than once.

"Yes, yes, sorry," Daniel said, squinting and glancing around. It was like he'd stared too long at the sun; his eyes didn't want to focus. Shifu seemed to be sound asleep, as before. The monk was now sitting across from him, hands on his knees, serene.

"Oma says: 'You are wise, Daniel Jackson.' "

"I beg your pardon?"

"Oma says, 'Some evils are so great, the only way to conquer them is to deny the battle.' And this, you already know."

Daniel frowned. "Yes, I guess I do."

"Oma Desala has done what you have asked."

"She has? That's it? I mean, he should grow up normally now? Like a normal human child? I mean, thank you."

"Your request has been granted, Daniel Jackson. Oma has taught him to forget." And the monk surged to his feet without touching the sandy floor with his hands. One fluid motion, and he was standing there, smiling slightly at Daniel.

He said, "Your people say, 'Keep in touch,' do they not?"

Daniel huffed out a laugh. "Yes, yes, we do; but I have to clarify, what is 'touch?' Do you mean the same thing that I mean by that?" The baby was definitely soundly asleep; a warm, heavy, reassuring weight against Daniel's chest.

"We are all doing what we can, Daniel Jackson. Oma says, 'Every day is the same and every day is different.' "

Daniel shifted the baby a little higher on his shoulder, and when he looked up, the monk was gone. Just vanished, as inexplicably as he had arrived. He looked around the room wildly, but all he saw was Paul, standing with his back against the wall by the door, video camera against his face. The torches burned on. There was a faint scent of sandalwood.

It wasn't enough. It wasn't..... Was that all? Was it really settled?

Daniel looked up at the vaulted white ceiling. "Oma," he said, "Oma, I know you can hear me. If you've really done this, if you've really 'taught him to forget,' taken away his knowledge, thank you. And please -- tell me..." He hadn't intended to ask this. He blurted the words without forethought and with a strong sense of shame. "I wasn't wrong, was I? I wasn't wrong to take the baby home with me. I wanted to do the right thing, I wanted to do what Sha're wanted. She told me to find him." His eyes filled with tears. "I did it for her; you know this is true. Oma, tell me I wasn't wrong."

He didn't want to cry. He didn't want Paul to record this. He squeezed his eyes shut.

_"Daniel."_

He started. He could hear her clearly; a distant yet sharp female voice. Authoritative and preoccupied. A voice very much like, well, like the voice of his mother. That thought made his throat close even more. He tried not to cry. He tried to listen, to concentrate. Such detachment. How was such detachment possible? How was it _admirable?_

_"Daniel. You want a guarantee. You want us to tell you that because you willingly took on this responsibility out of love for your wife, that that will affect and indeed bless the outcome of this child's life. But surely you understand that I don't have that kind of power. I guarantee nothing."_

She was speaking inside his head. He wondered if Paul could hear. He wondered if he sounded crazy, talking to no one.

"But, but-- you protected him. You are helping us."

_"When it is time for the chick to leave the nest and fly, does the mother bird worry?"_

He wanted to scream at her. But that would wake up the baby, and Paul was still recording. He had to be content with hissing. "Dammit -- enough of your aphorisms and koans and obscure quotations. Please."

_"Your intentions are good. Jack O'Neill's intentions are good. That is what matters most, in the long run. Goodbye, Doctor Jackson. Choose your burdens wisely."_

And she was gone. Even though he hadn't seen anything, he felt the withdrawal of her presence as clearly as if she'd closed a door.

Paul was looking at him, wide eyed. Daniel stepped over the lip of the star outlined on the floor and went to him. He looked a little shaken, but he was checking his recording.

Daniel said, "Did you get all that?"

"Yes, I think so."

"What happened?"

"You can see for yourself, here -- all three of you just disappeared for a bit inside a, a, globe of light. It was so bright, all around you for about a half a minute, and then it faded."

The camera's display whited out, then came back into focus as the light winked out, as Paul described.

Daniel shook his head, watching the end of his conversation with the monk repeated on the little screen. Paul paused the recording.

He said, reluctantly," Daniel. How do we know anything has changed with Shifu? Simmons' people won't take your word for it that he's different now, assuming, of course, that he really he is."

Daniel sighed. "If there was nothing on Janet's exams before, there won't be anything now." He shook his head.

Paul looked dubious. "I'll show them the tape, but there's nothing substantive here. I'm sorry."

"We've got to find a way to convince them somehow. We have to...." He and Paul stared at each other, thinking. Daniel looked back toward the star on the floor.

"Sir?" he called. "Sir? Hello?"

The hair on the back of his neck rose, like that sixth sense Jack claimed to have that let him see in the dark. Daniel swung around. The monk was standing behind him.

"Would you be willing to come back to Earth with us? Explain to my supervisors what has happened?"

"If Oma wishes it," the monk said.

Daniel and Paul looked at each other.

"Does she wish it?" Daniel said, trying to keep his impatience out of his voice.

"She does."

Paul packed up his camera and shouldered his pack again. When they left the temple, the monk walked right behind them. It was a strange and quiet trek back to the gate. The Marines had seen and heard nothing. Shifu woke up enough to drink part of a bottle and fell asleep again in Daniel's arms.

Paul tried to engage the monk in conversation, but he just smiled and kept walking, through the bright and silent forest.

 

^^^

Jack watched through the isolation room windows as Simmons paced around the table. The monk sat placidly in his chair, hands resting on his knees, in the pool of light from the ceiling spotlights. The only thing on the table was a microphone. It looked like an interrogation, but if Simmons had hoped to use that vibe to intimidate the monk, it so wasn't working.

Jack remembered him from the day Daniel had brought Shifu home. He was just as placid and unflappable here as he'd been at the temple on Kheb.

"Mr. -- Meng, was it? Mr. Meng, surely you can understand that simply claiming that this Oma person has removed all possible non-human knowledge from the baby's brain, is unprovable."

"You may call me Meng."

"Yes, yes, so you say. But answer my question."

You did not ask one."

Simmons turned around and folded his arms. He sighed. "How can we prove that you are telling the truth; that the baby is not a threat and that he has no nonhuman knowledge?"

"Only in the spring is it known whether the harvest will be enough to last the winter."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I have come at the request of Daniel Jackson to tell you, since Shifu cannot, that he is not the harcesis."

"What about the white light we saw on the tapes? You aren't denying that aliens were visiting earth without permission."

"The white light was sent by Oma Desala."

"And we're supposed to take your word that the light is benign?"

"Daniel Jackson asked Oma for help."

Simmons paced. Finally, at the end of the table, he wheeled to face the monk.

"Mr. Meng, we're going to have to insist that you accompany us back to Washington. The guarantees you provide are simply inconclusive." He turned to the window and looked up at Hammond and Jack. "General, I'm going to need a Marine escort to take Mr. Meng to Peterson."

"Colonel, this man is a guest. He came here voluntarily at Dr. Jackson's request. It is highly inappropriate for you to treat him as a prisoner."

"General Hammond, you may be willing to play hanky panky with energy beings who have demonstrated their willingness to invade Earth without permission, but Washington is taking a different view. Now Mr. Meng, please. I insist that--"

Simmons was cut off by the blare of the klaxons, and the red sirens on the wall of the observation room began to spin.

"Unscheduled gate activation! Unscheduled outgoing wormhole!" came Walter's surprised voice.

Hammond dashed for the gateroom. Jack stood up. The monk was dissolving before his eyes, and Simmons'. Simmons backed up, shrinking agains the wall. The monk's human form began to glow with a blue-white light, then lost its shape, and lifted from the floor, turning into the same kind glowing, flowing tendrils Jack had seen back on Kheb. The swirling shapes passed through the closed door of the iso room, and vanished.

Jack ran for the gateroom. Hammond's voice came over the speakers: "Hold your fire! Do not attempt to engage! Hold your fire!"

Jack was in time to see, through the thicket of AF rifles, the glowing being pass through the wormhole, which immediately flickered out of existence.

He looked up at the window, where Hammond was glaring at the now silent gate. The klaxons fell silent. The red lights cut off.

"ET, phone home?" Jack called.

Walter said, "He dialed Kheb, sir. I couldn't stop him, or close the iris either."

"Ah," Jack said.

Somehow he figured Daniel wouldn't be a bit surprised.

^^^

The combined reports of Hammond, Simmons and Major Davis resulted in such a case of gridlock at the Pentagon that Hammond, as the commander on the ground, ended up getting his way. The monk had gone home and no further communication was expected from Kheb, Hammond insisted. As far as they could tell, Oma deserved to be put in the same category as the Nox. Siler and Carter ran diagnostic after diagnostic, but were no closer to understanding how the iris had been disabled.

Shifu would be examined regularly by Janet for six months, Hammond decreed, and the only camera left in O'Neill's house would be in the baby's bedroom, fed live, to be monitored in real time, by the security room at the mountain. The human surveillance teams were cancelled. Daniel was so sure that Oma had handled everything that he had vowed that if anything changed, he would bring the baby to Washington himself.

Jack was left with a feeling, not really of victory, but of truce. But hey. He'd take it. Truces were good. Sometimes, they'd been known to hold for years.

^^^

Daniel, more tired than he really thought he had any right to be after what amounted to a long hike on a sunny day, leaned his shoulder against the doorframe of Shifu's bedroom. It seemed a miracle to simply stand there and watch him sleep. Just sleep. He lay on his stomach, fist against his mouth, his back moving gently with each breath. His nose was a little chapped. Amazing.

The quiet seemed deafening. Daniel glanced at his watch. Shifu had awakened for Janet's exam at the mountain, after the monk had made his dramatic exit, but had fallen asleep again in the truck going home. He'd now been asleep, on his own, for going on three hours. It was a new record.

Jack came up beside Daniel and put a hand on his shoulder. "There's some cold pizza in the fridge."

Daniel grinned. Life was sublime, life was ridiculous.

"I could eat," he said.

Later, it was he who followed Jack back to the doorway of the baby's room. It was magnetic, the pull of that serenity. Jack wanted to look too. Just look. It was amazing, to watch Shifu sleep. Just sleep. No crying, no suffering, no godlike aliens, no white light. Just a baby in a crib, and two guys watching him.

"No guarantees," Daniel whispered, and Jack squeezed his shoulder, and when Daniel met Jack's eyes, Jack had that knowing, rueful look.

"But you knew that all along, didn't you?" Daniel said. "You knew, absolutely precisely, what the risks are, what the dangers are here. And yet here we are. Here you are." Daniel shook his head in wonder. Jack winced.

"Don't worry," Daniel said. "I won't make you explain it. I think I finally get it. At least I'm starting to."

"Oh, good. Because you know how I hate explaining. So, you gonna come to bed, Dad? Because this day so needs to be over," Jack said.

"Bed sounds good," Daniel said, and with a last glance at Shifu, that was where he went.

It only occurred to him later what Jack had called him.

"Dad?" he said, when he was settled in the bed, his mouth against Jack's nape. "Is that a term of endearment?"

"Depends," Jack huffed. "Now can we go to sleep please? The man of the house does need his beauty rest. Big day of babysitting tomorrow."

"Dad," Daniel muttered. It felt weird. It fit Jack, but not him. Not yet. But, he decided, maybe it was only weird in the good way. Maybe someday, he'd get used to it.

end.


End file.
